Disability Commission Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

The open meeting law requires that I notify the public that this meeting is recorded. Therefore, please be aware that an audio and visual recording of this meeting is being made by Boston City TV, a part of the City of Boston office of cable communications and is being broadcast on Xfinity channel 26, RCN channel 13, and Fios channel nine six two, as well as live streamed on YouTube where recording will remain. With that, I will turn it over to our new chair, first meeting as chair. Zari, take it away. Oh, you're muted, Zari.

Nice way to start. Thank you so much, Andrea, and Good evening, everyone. As Andrea said, this is my first meeting as a new chair. So I'm gonna just introduce myself and give you a little bit of a brief description of who I am and my hopes and visions, but I probably will wait to do that later on during the meeting. For now, I'll just do a quick introduction.

My name is Zaria. I'm a member of SEMI. I've been a member of this board for, I believe, over ten years now. I work at Mass General Hospital as the disability program manager. I've been there about fifteen years, and I have also worked in higher ed.

I worked at UMass Boston and Harvard University. So I have a very kind of a high level perspective on all the barriers that affect our communities from different populations. So I am a white woman with short hair, short brown hair, and my background is a painting of a leaf painted by my mom. So that's my background, and I'm a resident of South Boston. So happy to be here. And next, I'm gonna turn it to Paul

Thank you, Zari, and congratulations on being the chair in your service. My name is Paul Karen, and I serve on the disability advisory board for about over seven years now. I work as a supervisor in the City of Boston Planning Department, serve as a mental health advocacy due to family and friends with mental health disabilities, and I live in the West End Of Boston. Thank you.

Let's see. Would you just give us an inspection on yourself?

I'm a Caucasian male with short, cropped, salt and pepper hair.

Some nuts. Olivia?

Hi. My name's Olivia Richard. I hail from Brighton, and I am a middle aged white woman with closed cropped hair, glasses, and I'm currently wearing a gray hoodie. I'm also a manual wheelchair user.

Thank you, Olivia. Let's see. Am I seeing all the I don't know if I can see everyone here.

That's alright. I can call them out for you. Paulette is here.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Paulette Durrett. I live in the Mattapan section of Boston. I'm a older African American woman, and I have on a bright lime green hoodie in honor of Saint Patrick's Day.

Let's stop.

And Wesley is here.

Hi, everybody. I'm Wes Ireland. I'm using American Sign Language, and I have two interpreters, two female interpreters, sign language interpreters working this evening, so you hear their voices. I live in the North End, and I think this is my eighth year now on the the board, on the advisory board. And I'll give you a visual description.

I'm a white male, and I have very short, close cropped hair, and I've got a beard, reddish beard, and I'm wearing a greenish blue sweater. In the background is is actually actually another another type type of of color color blue blue background. Background. Yeah. And I'm I wanted to say this is my first meeting of the new year. So happy new year to you all because I haven't been here in the first couple meetings this year.

And Zari, that is all of the current members. Commissioner Makash is here, and I know she has an announcement in addition to her introduction.

Hi, everybody. I'm Krista Makash. I'm the disability commissioner and the EDA title two coordinator for the city of Boston. I am a woman with blonde hair and glasses, and there is an image of city hall in my background. I use a manual wheelchair, and happy to be here tonight. I'm also happy to welcome three new faces to the meeting. We are privileged to welcome three new board members who are not officially sworn in yet, but that will be happening soon. So I would like to ask if they could introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about their background, give us a description of what they're looking like, and, yeah, just tell us who you are. I'm gonna start with Denise Martinez. Denise.

Hi. Good evening. My name is Denise Martinez. I live in South Foster. I am a state employee as well. I work with Mass Ability, and this is my first year. Hopefully, once I get appointed. I did the application, and I thought it wasn't selected. So this is a very surprise for me. Okay. I have two kids, both in Boston Public School. One has a I IEP. And I'm looking forward to being a part of this.

So Denise is filling the seat that is designated for a parent of a child with a disability, so we're really excited to have that perspective. So welcome, Denise. Next, I'd like to ask Sam Pastor if you could introduce yourself and tell us about your interest in the board and your background.

Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Pastor. I live in Dorchester, and I work for Mass Advocate Standing Strong. So I'm an advocate just like you all, and I'm a power wheelchair user.

Welcome, Sam.

Thanks, mister.

And then finally, Alan Mack. Alan, do you wanna tell us a little bit about yourself?

Yes. My name is Alan Mack. I'm currently a student at Berkeley College of Music as well as a criminal justice associate at Berkeley Hill. I also serve on Boston's Advisory Council On Ending Homelessness, and I'm an advocate. I I I love what I do, and I hope to bring a skill set to the board that can help the city.

Great. Welcome. Okay. With that, I'm gonna turn it back to Zari.

Great. Thank you so much, and welcome to the new board student. New members, I hope I have the opportunity to connect with each of you individually to learn about your interests and your passions. And, also, I hear a couple people from South Boston. So I'd love to connect with neighbors from my area too. So, next on the agenda, I believe you have a presenter tonight. I don't know if you have a very warm to make in Andrea.

Great questions. Jerry has joined us if you'd like him to introduce himself, but that still only gets us to six, not seven. So we don't have a quorum yet.

Alright. So with that said, I guess we'll just move forward with the Easter seals presentation. If they're here, welcome, and we are happy to have you and excited to hear your presentation.

Hello. My name is Sarah Parker. I'm excited to be here. I'm the program manager of the assistive technology regional center, and I have kinda long brown hair and some fresh blonde highlights in there. And I'm coming to you from the Boston Assistive Technology Regional Center with Easter Seals Massachusetts.

And Paul is here as well to help answer any questions that come up about Easter seals in general that we can help you with. And I I live in Boston as well, and I yeah. I'm just gonna kinda give you some information about the assistive technology regional center, which is a service that's available to everyone in Massachusetts. I'm gonna put my before I forget, I'm just gonna pop my email address into the chat. That way, if anyone has any more specific questions or has anything they wanna talk about, I would love to chat after the presentation.

It's just atrc@eastersealsma.org. So yeah. So Easter Seals. So our mission is to provide services to ensure children and adults with disabilities have equal opportunity to live, learn, work, and play. And we really stand by that.

That's probably one of my favorite parts about working for Easterseals is that we really see everyone as as the whole person. You know, we're not just there to help with vocational goals or just there to see the person as a student. We really wanna hear about everything that they're interested in and working on and what we can do to help get them set up with the tools to help them reach whatever goals that they have. And so we are part of the state assistive technology program, which is funded by the AT act, which is, again, a a federal act that every state has. Every state will have a similar program.

It's not exactly the same, but every state should have a program like ours to get assistive technology in the hands of community members and help them learn about it, help them try different things out. So, yeah, that's our main purpose. Yeah. We so we make it possible for people to learn about and have access to assistive technology. And I should probably say what assistive technology is just to be clear before I keep talking about how you'll have access to it.

So it's really any tool that's acquired off the shelf or, you know, modified to help anyone improve, maintain ability to to do anything really. So it can be it's really a spectrum and, you know, when I say assistive technology, the first thing most people think about is come some of that higher tech technology like iPads and high-tech communication devices. And we certainly have a lot of that technology, and we have that available for people. But we also have lots of, like, lower tech technology or mid tech. Like, it's a it's a real spectrum of services that we have and devices that we have.

It can be as low tech as a pencil grip or a tool that someone holds in their hand to be able to hold a fork better. It can be digital magnifiers. It can be all types of devices, and we really hit every category. We have communication devices. We have lots of leisure activities.

We have lots of, like, accessible gaming, adaptive gaming controllers. Really any category that people are looking for. We have devices to support you in. We also just kind of the way that assistive technology has changed in the last couple of years, a lot of technology tools are already built into people's devices. Like, time there's a update an iOS update on Apple phones, all types of new stuff gets added in.

So we really help people learn about how to turn those on and access them. So yeah. So our our probably our our main focus is short term device loans. So we do we loan out devices for around thirty days for people for all different reasons. The main reason is for people to use it to determine if it's going to work for them or use it as an assessment or evaluation.

So if they're deciding between a couple different devices, they can borrow ours and see if it'll work for them before they purchase it. We work with a lot of clinicians in the community. So we have lots of, like, SLPs and OTs that will come in to borrow devices to try with their clients before they make a recommendation. You can also come to borrow stuff, you know, if you have a device that you like to use and it's broken, so you need something in the meantime, short term accommodations, and we also all our services are available for people to use to learn for themselves or, you know, I used to when I was out in the community working at schools, I would often use the ATRC if I wanted to do an activity. My school classroom wasn't gonna buy me six new iPads and switches to do an activity, so I would come here and borrow devices so that I could bring them to try out and do different things in my classroom.

Let's see. We also have some of the other programs out activities that we do as part of the assistive technology regional center. So, again, the main thing is device loans, I would say. But we also do demonstrations and trainings. So people can schedule times to come in to our office to, again, get a demonstration if they're deciding between a couple devices or they think they're gonna again, maybe buy I'm just looking around because I'm in our office here.

If they're thinking about buying, again, a digital magnifier, they wanna come see the different sizes, or they want one they can hold with their hand that they can go in their purse to use to read the menu when they're at a restaurant. Would they prefer a larger one with a a tabletop that they can move? So we're here for demonstrations like that. Again, those trainings, we've been doing more and more trainings about accessibility features that are on people's phones or just different topics of assistive technology in general. We'll do those.

We do public awareness events, so keep us in mind. We love coming out to different community events and tabling or we have a van that is like our mobile demonstration center so that can come to events. So we really, again, wanna just get the word out about our services. A lot of people, you know, wanna know what the catch is because I don't know if I saw that. Everything we do is totally free.

So loans are totally free. Events are totally free. We just want to get our information out there. So sometimes people wanna know what the catch is, but there isn't one. So again, please invite us and keep us in mind if you have any events. And let's see. Oh, I also I'm gonna put some more links in the chat. I have a link to our webs a couple websites. So we have an inventory online so that people can go on and look through the inventory that we have. So Easterseals has two locations, two ATRCs, one in Boston.

We're in South Street right by South Station at the nonprofit center. So that's where we are in Boston. We also have a Worcester location, and then there's a third HERC in Western Mass in Pittsfield that's not operated by Easterseals. But you can view our inventory all online. So I'll put that in the chat.

We we are in partnership with Massability, so that's our inventory. To to get in touch with us, I I would recommend just letting us know that you wanted to come just to make sure that someone's available to connect with someone if they come in. You can send us an email. You can give us a a phone call. I'll put the number in the chat as well.

Or you can go right ahead on that inventory site and request a device. And I'm timing myself. I'm twelve seconds over, but I wanna say that we're having I'm really excited. We're having a web accessibility webinar series that's starting. And it's, again, totally free. We have a couple of our presenters. Harvard's digital accessibility team is doing the first presentation in April. So I'll put

that

information online again. Again, free, available to anyone. We just want to get information out about accessibility and to help people get connected with resources that they're looking for. So I'll wrap up. But if anyone has any questions, again, for me, I'm happy to answer now or if you wanna give me an send me an email. And Paul is here as well if there was any general Easterseals questions.

Thank you so much, Sarah. This was a great presentation. I've both received before for some of our patients who were being who had some needs around assistive technology. So it's great to know that your services exist in the community and our feet. So I guess I start with the questions for you. And that is, how much connection do you have to rehab hospitals, especially around the fact that some of the patients who are newly

injured Turn on my living room light, please.

Could you turn off your body? As far as being connected to rehab hospitals, how well are you connected to them so that they know they're aware of your services and they can put patients in touch with you?

Yeah. I would say we're not we're pretty connected. Again, it would kind of be if the the clinicians at those hospitals are familiar with our services, which, again, we're doing whatever I can to to spread that word. But we do have people that reach out all the time that are at, again, assisted living or rehab or substance abuse programs that clients will clinicians will reach out and say, I have someone here who is not able to fully participate in the recovery program or things because of an access barrier. So they're kind of looking for a short term recommendation or solution to kind of implement those services.

But we're always looking for new connections, and again, anything I can do, again, to if there's like conferences or again, anyone that I can connect with, I always kind of share that information to, again, either give them an accommodation to be able to participate in their services or come up with a good solution for going forward. We also since we're in Boston, I'm connected pretty closely with lots of the, like, college programs, like people that are in OT, PT graduate programs, a lot of them will come in as a part of a class or different programming to learn about services so that going forward, you know, they'll they'll be more informed to make recommendations for devices that could help.

Thank you.

Sorry. I saw Jerry had his hand up and then Olivia and Wes also put questions in the chat.

Okay. So Olivia's question says, do you share AT items between sites? So if Worcester has an item, can I pick it up in Boston? Totally. All all the time. Again, I just met up today with my colleague that works in Worcester and we traded devices back and forth. But we also there's devices in I get the question a lot about the devices in Pittsfield. So that's a little bit harder, but we totally make it work. It might just be, you know, not as not as quick to get those devices. Like, I'm meeting up again with the the person that works in Pittsfield the first week in April, and we have a plan to swap some devices that that day.

So but Boston and Worcester is no problem. We can certainly swap those around.

From the latest?

Yep. The question says, with the age of artificial intelligence, has this been incorporated in some of Easterseals assistive technology offerings? If so, can you give a couple of AI examples in some of your products? Yeah. Totally. So we have the Meta Ray Ban glasses. So those are I just saw some happy faces. Yes. So those are available. We have one we have two pairs, so one at each location.

Those are hard to keep in stock because as soon as they come in, someone else wants them out. So how those work is there's lots of different features that can help again with all different categories of things you're trying to do with them and all types of different abilities. But one thing is the AI. So you can say, like, hey, Meta. What am I looking at? And it'll describe in great detail what's in front of you. Or you can say, I'm looking at this board. Which train has a train to Attleboro? And then it'll kind of describe that to you or things like that. So we're learning.

It's it's changing very quickly. So I'm we try to stay up to date and and learn about different things. We also have all this really cool device. It's called the Lyric. So that's for people with very low or no vision.

And you can put a paper under it and it'll read it out loud to you. That helps a lot of people come in asking that they need help reading their mail out loud to them. So that's something that people use, and there's also an AI version of it that's really cool. And that will, like, describe what's on it. So you can put a painting under it, and it'll say, you're looking at a watercolor painting of a lily with a red butterfly in the background.

So that kind of thing has been really cool. And also the MetaGlass, I should say, they also, like, integrate with E My Eyes and different apps that are available to help people. So we're learning all the time about different AI that's built into different assistive technology and so that we're able to share that information out and, again, just kind of stay up to date on what's changing within people's phones and different note taking. I used to work in higher ed and we would do a lot of note taking apps that would record. And then now they have the ability to kind of pull out that information and tell you what to study for your exam and yeah.

Things like that. And but also being aware too that there's also lots of people are still trying to figure out the restrictions and things around that. So leaving, like, making the choice up to the person, but just giving all the information that we have.

Any other questions?

I think Jerry

still has one.

Yeah. Jerry?

Thank you. And thanks, Ari, and and thanks, Sarah, for your presentation. I may have missed this earlier, but do you offer any training at all or how to on on how to use any of the technology that you lend, or or is the user I mean, is the person coming in expected to, like, really know how to use the, like, the MEDIGlasses or or whatever it is?

Yeah. So we do offer trainings. I will say it does kind of vary depending on the device. So, again, like those Metaglasses, I'm pretty familiar with, and I'd be able to show you how to use it and tell you different commands that you can use with it and how to connect it to your account and all that stuff. And we also do, again, trainings on different general things when it comes to assistive technology.

The only thing we we, you know, really can't do is spend a lot of time training someone on, like, some of that really in-depth things that you might need to work. Like, some of those really, you know, more complex communication devices, like something like that to be trained on it is gonna take work with an SLP or someone that you're working with to get really, like, fluent and comfortable in technology, but we can certainly get you set up and give you the the basics of using the technology. And I also, like, can send you I'm big on, like, YouTube videos and, like, handouts, so I can always send a bunch of information your way. So we do to answer your question, yes, we do, like we do train people on things, but there's certain things that you may not leave our center, you know, totally Yeah.

But the basics. The basics. Most of most things you can give them at least a basic so they can try try it out try out the technology anyway. So Totally. That's great. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Stella. Oh, just one last question. Is there a list of different equipment on your website that people can just know about? Because I found the things you mentioned I've never heard of.

Yeah. So I just put I put the link in the chat a little bit up there, but I'll repost it. So that's our inventory that you can go on and search by category or you can search by center. But again, you will see things that are in Boston, Worcester, and Pittsfield on that. But you can always go through it.

One of my favorite parts is on the left. You can say, like, newly listed items. So you can go right to that and kind of see what's new in our centers and what's updated. But, yeah, that website has our inventory, so that will have, like, all our devices listed there. Thanks for having us.

Zari, you're not muted, but we're having trouble hearing you.

Is that Yes. Okay. Thank you so much, Trent. Sorry for that technology. Okay. So next, we're going to have commissioner McClatch do her slides and presentation.

Thank you, Zari.

Just getting my text set up. Great. Thank you.

Alright. Let's go to my first slide. Alright. So I have some general updates from the city of Boston. First, I wanted to just kinda close the loop on snow.

As you all know, we had a lot of snow this winter in Boston. In particular, we had two large storms that dumped feet of snow in the city, and it really impacted people with disabilities. My office works very closely with the public works department and the streets cabinet and neighborhood services, the equity cabinet to ensure that we really pay attention to access and especially the public rights of way that the city is responsible for. As you may know from Andrea's presentation in January, the city is responsible for cleaning snow from sidewalks that are in front of city property, like schools, libraries, and BCYF centers. However, residents or property owners are responsible for clearing sidewalk in front of their property.

So we really work hard to get the word out about responsibilities to property owners. We also work closely with the office in the city that issues fines for people who don't do snow removal. And the city did issue a large number of fines because we saw that people didn't always remove the snow. The city was really overwhelmed with snow, and they did a lot of removal, which they don't do every year. But they basically ran out of places to put the snow because they had over a dozen snow farms, but there really just isn't that much room surrounding Boston, all within Boston, to move the snow.

So we know there were some challenges. We heard about them at the city council hearing I testified at. And I just wanted to let this group know too that if you are hearing anything from the community or you're seeing things in your neighborhood, please reach out to me and let me know because these are things that I can help to figure out before it gets to the point of a city council hearing. You know, you're all welcome to do your own advocacy, you know, in the news and things like that, but it would be great if you work with us as well to help us figure out trouble spots and let us know what the community is saying. So after the winter ends and this snow is finally over, we're going to circle back with the streets cabinet to assess the clearance and removals that took place this year and also to make improvements.

On a more fun note, the city of Boston is working Boston two fifty. This is the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of America. It will be followed in a few years by Boston four hundred, which is the four hundredth anniversary of the city of Boston. So we're working on social stories and historic markers. The city I'm sorry.

Not the city, but Boston two fifty is issuing mini grants for organizations if they wanna submit ideas for historical markers. Things like the Perkins School for the Blind, which was in South Boston. It started downtown, and then it had a few different locations. But things like that, you can propose ideas for an actual physical marker to mark a spot in Boston where something historical happened. We wanna make sure that disability history is represented.

So if you have any ideas or recommendations of sites to highlight, please let me know. Another new item is Mayor Wu is hosting office hours outside of city hall. She's really committed this in this administration to bring city hall outside of city hall. So she's working with office of neighborhood services to set up events in the different neighborhoods. The first one was held two weeks ago at the Bowen Building in Mumbai Square.

And it's a way to kinda do it like a one stop shop to pay parking tickets, tax bills, get an application for an on street accessible parking space or other applications you may need. So we wanna encourage residents to attend these events if they have questions, wanna talk with city officials, or just need to get basic city services done, you can't access city hall for whatever reason. So future dates will be announced, so we wanna ask you to watch out for those soon. And any notices like this that you get, please spread to your networks.

Next slide.

So some department updates, and some of these are really exciting. So we are working on a civic engagement cohort. We're partnering with the disability policy consortium on a six week program about civic engagement. Our plan is to empower 10 to 20 Boston residents to get involved with disability and accessibility civic issues. It's sort of like our civic engagement day that we do every September, but it's gonna be a six week program with trainings, learning about different departments, like learn how to register to vote, learn how to testify at a city council hearing, learn about planning department initiatives, how you can provide public comments, where you can give testimony.

So all ways that you can impact the city and use your lens of disability and accessibility to really make improvements throughout the city. So our applications are planning to be sent out next week, and we really need your help spreading the word. We're trying to target people who aren't already disability advocates, so maybe find some new voices and get new lenses in this world, in this space. So we would love it if you know people who are interested in accessibility and disability issues, but aren't actually in the advocacy community. We'd love to reach those groups of people.

Because we know there are a lot of people in underserved neighborhoods and from underserved communities who don't always know about the opportunities to get involved, and this will be a great way to train them and help them organize their groups within their neighborhoods to really impact policies and infrastructure in the city. Our annual disability community forum will be held on Tuesday, March 5, from two to 03:30 at Suffolk University Law School in. We've done this event hybrid the last few years, and it's worked out really well. Although, we really like to see you all in person, so I'm hoping you all will able to attend. I'll produce and highlight the 2025 annual report.

Mayor Wu usually attends if her schedule allows, and other city officials and department staff will be there to answer questions and provide information. I'm looking forward to board members participating again this year and wanted to ask a few things. If you had any thoughts on changes within your usual role, I know pretty much you just introduce yourselves and kinda listen. But if you're interested in being more actively engaged or reading pieces of the annual report, I'd be happy to see those pieces of my report to you all to read. So I thought maybe it would be a good match for the areas of interest that you've identified.

You may wanna take on that piece of the report and just read it out to the community. And a few years ago, we did a post event social at what's the name of it? Anybody else have help me. It's a restaurant right on Tremont Street right across

from Beantown Pub?

That's it. Beantown Pub. It was really fun. A bunch of us went. So if you're interested in doing that again this year, I'd definitely be able to do it. And then our other big event every year for our new members who may not know is ADA Day. This is our annual celebration of the anniversary of the ADA. We do a big event every year on Boston City Hall Plaza. We always run it ourselves as a city department except for the big anniversary years like the twentieth, twenty fifth, thirtieth, and thirty fifth, which we join events with different disability organizations. Last year, we had a huge crowd for the thirty fifth anniversary.

So this year, we'll be going back to our event, our typical event. But instead of being on City Plaza, we will be at Coppley Square Park. And that is because the city of Boston will be very busy this summer with FIFA and Tall Ships, which are gonna basically take over City Hall Plaza for the month late June and early July. So we'll have more details coming out about ADA day, but I want you all to hold the date. And just for those of you who are new, this is a celebration where we have music and food and T shirts, but we also connect disabled residents to agencies and services.

It's the biggest recess fair in the city for people with disabilities. We have tables with over 30 different agencies who attend, so you can get information on the services, programs, information that you may need or that you can pass on to your communities. So we always look forward to seeing our board members there and also spreading word to their networks. And one exciting thing that we're planning is to launch our updated ADA transition plan. It's kind of, at

this point, more of, like,

a dashboard just showing all the infrastructure in the city, when it was last updated, what accessibility features it has. And this will cover everything from schools to public buildings, like libraries and VCUI centers to curb ramps, sidewalks, accessible parking spaces. It's gonna run the gamut. So it's gonna be a one stop site for all accessible infrastructure in the city of Boston. So stay tuned for more on that. We're really excited. And then for the next slide, I am gonna turn it over to Patricia Mendez to give her architectural access update. And, Patricia, will you just introduce yourself and talk a little bit about your department for the benefit of our new members?

Commissioner, we may have lost Patricia. I can do it for her. I don't believe she's in right now. So I'll check. Hi, everyone.

I'm Andrea, not Patricia, apologies. But some exciting news from the US Access Board. So The US Access Board is a federal agency charged with developing technical standards to allow for the implementation of the ADA. Right? So the ADA doesn't necessarily in the law that congress voted on say curb ramps can be, you know, no greater than 8%.

They delegated all that technical piece to this US access board. And so they host meetings around the country each year and their upcoming meeting in May is a town hall in Providence, Rhode Island. So they're coming to New England. They wanna hear from the community about accessibility in Rhode Island and and really all of New England. They reached out to us specifically to invite us to attend.

You'll be able to meet and speak with presidentially appointed board members and representatives from other agencies. You may notice that it is Tuesday, May 5 from one to 3PM which completely overlaps with the disability community forum. Of course, it does. That's how it works. So let us know what your plans are for that day, but we hope you will also communicate with other folks maybe outside of Boston who aren't coming to the Disability Community Forum about this event.

You can register if you're attending by April 25 or sorry, twenty sixth. The event is open to the public and will have a public comment period. So again, anyone who is in New England, all of New England, if you have friends in Rhode Island, friends in New Hampshire, they can go. Patricia, who unfortunately is not here right now, will be attending along with our senior architectural access specialist. So you'll miss seeing them at community forum but they will be there representing Boston.

You can also submit comment if you would like to that email. So if you're gonna join us here in Boston, you can submit that, information over email. And so that's a general town hall, a board meeting event that is happening. Also hot off the presses from the Access Board, is a public comment period about something specific. So again, they developed technical standards.

You know, two years ago, they released specific technical standards for electric vehicle charging stations and and what the requirements are for those to remain accessible to people with disabilities. One of their latest pushes is that they're seeking public comment regarding universal changing tables, changing stations, excuse me, specifically for adult changing tables. There are a lot of standards, for, you know, baby changing tables, and other building codes. This would be the first code for, what is a federal standard for an accessible adult changing table. So you can learn more on their website, but the public comment period is open through April 20.

So this public comment could be technical if you have technical knowledge of that you want them to consider, But it does not have to be. It can be sort of plain language and in your own experience. If you or or someone you know have an opinion of any sort about adult changing tables, please feel free to submit comment.

Thank you, Andrea. And I see that Patricia has rejoined us. So, Patricia, Andrea Andrea gave your report since you weren't able to log on, but I wondered if for the benefit of other members, you could just introduce yourself and talk a little bit about your staff and what you do in our office.

Hi, everyone. My name is Patricia Mendez. I'm the director of architectural access for the Disabilities Commission. My role in the Disabilities Commission is to look at the architecture, the building, the

building,

project development in Boston. I have an awesome team, with Sarah Leon and with Sierra Tilton, and it's really nice to meet the the new members, and look forward to getting to know you and to work with you.

Thanks, Patricia. And that is the end of my report. So I will turn it back to Zari. If anybody has any questions, I'm happy to respond.

Thank you so much, commissioner. Thank you, Patricia and Andrea for your updates. And right. So next, we're going to talk about three letters that we have drafted. The first one is voting machines. And I believe that we have Andrea, did we already vote to draft these letters last time?

Yep. So last meeting, we voted to make these drafts, and now these drafts have been proposed for review. A second vote would need to be taken to approve them for sending, although we don't have a quorum right now. So we can discuss them, but we wouldn't actually be able to take that vote.

Okay. So just to give you a bit of an overview of each each of these letters, the first one is on the voting machines, the auto mark, which is not very accessible to people with disabilities. So our request is to take a look at alternative loading machines to be more accessible for people with disabilities. What we've experienced in the past is people with disabilities have a difficult time independently marking the ballot, and some people have experienced papers getting jammed or just difficulty managing it. So our hope is to look at alternative ways of voting for our community.

Hopefully, when we have a call, we can, you know, make a motion and approve this letter. The second letter has to do with a bill that has to be has to do with service animals. And, basically, this is so that people with disabilities are allowed to well, let me just rephrase. The first one is a senate bill, senate bill seventeen fourteen. And, basically, it's an act to form a commission to study discrimination against service animal antlers.

So, basically, we want to we are proposing to form a commission to take a look at why people with service animals are handlers are being discriminated against. So, again, once we have a call, we can vote on this letter moving forward. This the third letter, h two zero six six, is a letter to at the imposed fines on transportation network drivers who discriminate against riders with disabilities who use service animals. And, again, once we have a quorum, we can vote on this letter. Does anybody have any questions?

I don't see anyone with any hands raised. So I'm assuming no one has any question. Alright.

I see Jerry has a hand.

Okay. I'm sorry. I'm still getting used to this. So sorry, Jerry. Got it.

No problem. And I was just able to to find the raised hand, so don't don't worry about it. Zara, you're doing a fine job. My question is in regards to the to the letter to the secretary of state regarding the automatic machine. You know, I I don't know what our policy has been in the past for for follow-up.

It's kind of an open ended letter, so I didn't know whether whether we should keep it, you know, keep the issue up under under old business so that we can check-in or or maybe what's I'd be open to to discussing, you know, follow-up in regards to either this or or any of those of the letters. You know? You know? And maybe, you know, Andrea or the commissioner can talk to can help us, you know, with follow follow-up what has been the typical follow-up on any issues or letters that we've sent.

This is Andrea. I'll say there've been a cup in my experience, you've done a few different kinds of letters. The legislative letters don't tend to have a specific follow-up or like a specific ask. Right? It's we support you know, please push it through.

Right. Yep.

I think the only one I can think of where there's been a specific ask is Abilities Expo where you've asked like for a meeting or or to talk, you know, with them further about what it would look like to bring the the expo back to Boston or back to New England. You all could certainly ask for a meeting with the secretary or, you know, something like that if you wanted to ask for a specific action from him, beyond to add a machine to your list, you can certainly request, you know, those actions. The only other thing I'll say because Carl's not here, I know he's mentioned to me that other boards like yours have similar interest. And so you could also vote to invite other commissions to cosign the letter as an additional action that something that would not currently be reflected in the draft?

Yeah. I mean, I just noticed that that we that the that the the letter is pretty open open ended, but we do ask that we begin the process of, you know, researching other technologies and, you know, know, the thinking that people with disabilities can have to to vote. So I just wanna I just want us to be able to to follow-up, you you know, and and I I think thank you for suggesting, Andrea. I think, you know, asking you know, maybe talking to Carl, finding out what other commissions are interested in this issue and maybe asking them to sign off in a little will will help. And also asking for a meeting with the secretary's office, I don't I don't think that would hurt.

So

And

Yes. Go ahead. Yeah. I wanna add

one thing. I didn't get to mention it in my report, but on a parallel track, my office is also still working with the elections commission in order to address the barriers that we've heard. We know, as outlined very eloquently in the letter, all the problems with the watermark. We know there hasn't been a great alternative suggested, but we are also encouraging our elections commissioner and chief of of the registry in the city to work with us on crafting a letter so that it will come from the commission and from the city. We continue to explore better options for access, including training, you know, better materials available for poll workers, things like that.

So this work on election access is ongoing, and I think the board's letter is a critical piece of it. But I just want to let you know that we're also working on parallel track to include things in house in the city government. Andrea, would you add anything to that?

No. I think that's everything.

But I'd I'd just like to add based on what Jerry just was asking as far as follow ups. I'm just wondering once these letters are submitted, do we revisit or or, you know, go back to them and say, you know, maybe how far we've gone with this request, what was the responses, what are some of the updates? Do we do that normally with these letters, or what happens once they're submitted?

Everything and nothing. It's up to you. There are some topics you all have revisited such as accessible trails. There's accessible trails legislation that you all have followed up on and discussed. Again, commissioner has engaged over email with Abilities Expo on your behalf. There are also letters that you've sent and we didn't hear anything and the board has not put it back on their agenda. But there's no rules here. It's it's whatever you all wanna do. If you all wanna talk about this every month, we'll talk about this every month. If you wanna talk about it every six months, every six years, you know, it's your agenda.

Alright. Well, this is Jerry. I would suggest that I would suggest as a follow-up, you know, we speak with the you know, I don't know if if the I know that you that Andrea and the commissioner, you you've mentioned being on those monthly calls with disability commission boards and disability commissions. I don't know if you've heard from other other boards and commissions on this issue. I know, Andrew, you just mentioned Carl.

So I would definitely, you know, wanna have some follow-up and and maybe ask ask for ask for other commission's support support and maybe sign on to the letter sign on to the letter, number one. And two, you know, I would like us to follow-up and maybe ask secretary of of of state for for a meeting either with the executive team or with with with you, Zari, or with the, you know, commissioner's office to discuss this issue further as well.

Okay. So I'm hearing a suggested edit to the letter asking for a meeting with the secretary of state. And if and when you all can can take a vote, Jerry, I hear your motion including sharing it with other boards to to sign on if they would like.

Yes. Yes. I hear him too. And that's that's exactly what I would say. Perfect. Thank you, Jerry. This is.

So we well, we can't vote. Right? Because we don't have

a forum. So

We can't vote today. Right. But we can't take the suggestions and that. I'll be Yeah.

Definitely. Alright.

So I just actually skipped Can I add one more thing? Go ahead. Of course.

Just before we leave this topic, it's not specifically related to elections. But speaking of letters, I meant to suggest in my report if anyone is interested in digging into the adult changing table issue and drafting a letter, that could be

something that could come from

the board. But, again, it's very impactful when you work together as a group to give your thoughts. I don't know if anyone knows a lot about them, but they're a new accessibility feature in bathrooms. And a lot of, like, stadiums are installed in them. They're super helpful for people with severe mobility disabilities, So any input would be great. So just throwing that out there. These are the types of things that you could write letters on, which would be really helpful. So I would leave that in your hands, Ari.

We thought we are realizing how needed they are, unfortunately, because most of our buildings in Boston are old, the bathrooms have not been able to accommodate these tables. So I would love to draft this letter and hopefully present it to everyone and see what you guys think. But I think it's important, and I appreciate it being here.

This is Andrea. I'll just say that because you can't vote tonight because you don't have a quorum, you'll likely miss the April 20 deadline for the board, the US Access Board as a board. However, sorry, it sounds like you've got some individual opinions. You as a member of the public of of America, can certainly write a letter on your own.

Apologies. But, again, I'll I'll I'll just make an excuse that this is my first stop doing this as a check. I skipped over board members, check with me, anything that they wanna bring up. So I'm gonna open it up to the members of the board if you have any anything that you wanna share?

While you all consider, I will just offer some context for our newer members about what this means when we say share outs. We have called it sorry. I'm gonna swap the interpreters. We've called it announcements in the past, but we specifically renamed it share outs because there's so much excellent work happening between board meetings. If Zari writes this letter to the US Access Board, we hope she'll share about it next month.

There's so much happening in your neighborhoods whether it's disability access related or not. And so this is the opportunity for everyone to share out with the board whatever was happening this month. So that is what this share outs means. I know it's not intuitive. And I see Jerry's got a handout.

Yes. Thank you, Andrea, and thanks, Ari, for the opportunity. A couple of weeks ago or maybe even last week, yes, it was last week, I was able to hop on virtually the Disability Policy Consortium. I hosted a legislative briefing on on wheelchair repair reform bills that are currently in the legislature, mass legislature at the at at this point. In fact, the house version has been in committee since since last August, and it was a very powerful legislative briefing.

Folks with disabilities, you know, shared their wheelchair repair, you know, stories both in person and in in the chat. I was able to to share my perspective on on things. So I would yeah. You know, I would you know, it was very, very powerful, and I would hope that we could, maybe under new business, talk about maybe writing letters in support of of of these pieces of of legislation under new business.

Thank you, Jerry. Wesley?

Yes. Hi there. I have three short things that I wanted to mention. Community area community meeting related to the Tall Ships, the Tall Ships event. And that was Sale Boston came and gave a presentation to the community, to the basic community meeting.

And they were talking about some of the basically, fact that that event is going to impact the community because that's happening generally, obviously, in our area with the tall ships, which is interesting. It'll be an interesting event. The second thing I wanted to share is I wanted to basically put up on the table an issue related to an experience that happened this winter that I had related to a parking situation in the North End. Interestingly, what happened was it was on a Friday or Saturday night when people, you know, generally come to the North End for dinner, to visit the restaurants. And oftentimes, you know, I was looking for parking, and there was a car that parked.

And it actually didn't have a North End permanent, basically, sticker or resident sticker on it. And they told the person that if we can't see the sticker or we can't see the sticker so what they did is they actually put a handicap card on the front of their dash. And the car was located in in a space that was only for residents. So there was no space for a handicapped person to park. And, basically, the person just ignored them and went away.

I took a I took a shot, and I I filed a report. I report reported what had happened. And I think that, you know, I I'm wondering what the city's response is gonna be to that issue because with the parking sticker situation for a parking space, that really should be accessible. I mean, I don't know what the city has to say about that, but I felt like that was a real issue when it comes to disability parking spaces versus residence residency sticker parking spaces. So there's bit of a tension there. So I wanted to I wanted to bring up that issue, put that out there. The third item was

I actually have

a question about the adult the adult size changing table. And I'm wondering if if they're adjustable. Maybe it's possible to have these to be adjustable for children and for adults. I mean, this is an interesting issue because there are new changes coming that I'm not sure if they're actually going to be safe for changing a baby. Or, like, are the large tables going to be sufficient for both sort of types of consumer?

So I'm just wondering if people are aware of the fact that maybe some of these new with some of the new changes, it may or may not be accessible or reasonable for both types of users. So I wanna put that out for discussion or just for an FYI.

Well, see, I know that the changing tables are adjustable as far as the fight. We had looked at it a lot for MGH. And I know that they they require a lot of support as far as the weight. So the height is adjustable, but the size is not. So that's the issue as far as the space that it takes.

But once it's set up, I believe anyone can use it. It's it's it's it's much bigger. So for a child, it just might be too big, but I don't think that it could be adjusted to a size that it could be smaller for a child. So in this case, I think that we would need to look at both a dog and a child changing table in the backrooms.

Okay.

Great. Thank you. Yep. So the packing question, Andrea, do you wanna jump in on that when we get to it? And then I'll add some content.

Sure. This is Andrea. I will just add that having one of those blue placards from the RMV that hangs inside your car does not exempt you from the resident sticker requirement. So if it's a street that's north end permit, south end permit, j p permit, right, the placard does not exempt you from needing to have that sticker on that street. If there is an accessible spot on the street, right, two signs mid block that point at each other for accessible parking, the placard allows you to park there without a resident sticker even if the rest of the street requires the resident sticker, like those signs don't.

There's a very small pilot of new signs, I'm sorry, it's a little complicated, that have both things. They have the HPDV, you know, wheelchair symbol and they say South Boston permit. If the signs say both things, you need to have both things, a placard and a sticker. But if the signs just have the wheelchair, you only have to have a placard. And if the signs only say South Boston resident, you have to have a South Boston sticker.

So if parking enforcement came out and didn't ticket that person and they said, well, they have a placard. They don't need a sticker. That's wrong. Send me your sticker or your picture and we can chat with with transportation about that.

I think that sums it up pretty fairly.

This is Wes again. I'm sorry to interrupt. This yeah. I can confirm that this person was did park in the wrong place. And I I sent the picture, like I said, to the to 311. That was a misinterpretation earlier. I sent it to 311 earlier because they were parked in the wrong designated spot even with the handicapped placard.

Okay. Thank you.

May I make a request just for general or terminology? If we cannot use the word handicap, it's it's a bit of an outdated language. So if we can just use the same disabled, that would be better. And I might be able to present at some point on etiquette and terminology just so that we are on the same page.

Yeah. This is Wes. I yeah. I I meant the blue placard. Yes. Yes. The blue placard that hangs in in the car. Yep. Still noted. Sure. Thank you.

And then I see Paulette has a hand.

Hi.

I recruited a group of deaf individuals from Work Inc to do volunteer work at the Salvation Army. They do a food distribution twice a month. And I was at another event with their organization, and one of the women was just chatting me up about what do I do in retirement, and I told her this. And so I recruited this wonderful group who are trying very hard to teach me sign language, and I'm doing so so. But they are faithfully coming twice a month, and we feed them lunch, and they love it.

And so that's a victory for us. So, similarly, a group from LifeWorks, which is a group of adult developmentally delayed individuals comes on so we have two days. One day we pack and one day we distribute. So the deaf individuals come on Monday and pack, and the developmentally delayed adults or individuals come on Tuesday to pass it out. And it's a wonderful way for the community to see people that are different than them serving the community and being part of it.

And so I'm really proud that I'm I'm part of that initiative. You know? So I always make sure that that I kid around with them and make it right for them because sometimes people do come in and kinda just get a little taken back that all the people that are working with them. But now they're starting to get used to them and looking forward to interacting with them more. So I'm really glad about that. So that's my shout out. Thank you.

That's beautiful. Thank you so much, That's a good work happening there, and I appreciate it. Anyone else has any? Olivia?

Yeah. Just wanted to throw it out there that the Boston Housing Authority has a very limited number of Chromebooks and tablets that they're trying to bridge the digital equity divide. You have to be a BHA resident or a public housing section eight tenant to receive one, but they they're doing that. You have to be able to go to 52 Chauncey to pick it up. They aren't delivering to sites.

But, yeah, that's that's available. Contact your local management office or digital equity at b h a at bostonhousing.gov. Or bostonhousing.org. I always forget. They're not gov.

What is the program called again?

The digital equity office. They they perform all kinds of of digital equity events around the the sites that the BHA manages. I received a flyer. It's got a QR code that doesn't work, so I recommend calling Digital Equity directly.

Okay. The irony. I'm gonna have to be a BHA? Yes. Okay.

Bye. Well, I nothing to report for this evening. So no new projects on now. Hopefully, next month, I'm working with a national organization called that is looking at disability data in health care environment and how to document visibility as part of a demographic rather than a health assessment. So I will once I have more to share, I will definitely share it at the next meeting, but I just wanted to highlight this work that we are doing across NGB.

And, hopefully, it will have a big impact on how disability is looked at as a part of demographic along with ethnicity, race. So that will have a, hopefully, a long term impact on benefits, health care, and yeah. So more to come. Alright. I guess next, we'll open it up to the community to see if anyone has any questions.

Sorry. Give me one second. I'm trying to troubleshoot captions so that we have access, everyone.

Right.

Apologies. One moment. Okay. I think we may have lost the captioner. I'm going to remove permissions and they'll go to like AI captions.

Okay. Wes, are they working now? Okay. Yep. I think they'll be the AI captions. Yeah. So they won't be as great while I work offline with the captioner. Apologies for that. Okay. Zari, back to you for new business.

The interpreters are having a hard time hearing Zari speaking. I'm not sure if it's audio or others are having the same problem.

Are people having difficulty hearing me? Can you

You're back now.

I'm back now. Okay. What I was saying is that I have no new business, but I see Jerry's hand up. Jerry?

Yes. Thank you, Zari. Again, I just wanted to keep yeah. I know we can't make any motions or whatnot, but I did wanna I can forward the information in regards to those two two wheelchair repair legislative bills, both the senate and the house version. I can forward them to you or Andrea or put them in the chat, whatever is appropriate, and maybe we can discuss next month making a motion to have a letter in support of of of those of those bills, and maybe we can put a bug in Carl's ear to to let us know if if if there's been any movement on them before before next month's meeting as well.

So

Jerry, this is Andrea. Noted, send them to me. I can make sure it's on the agenda for the next executive committee meeting.

Okay. And, unfortunately, I know Zari's having trouble with her her microphone, I guess, Andrea. So

This is Andrea. I'm pausing to reconnect with the interpreter or the captioner who should be set up in a minute. Okay. Catherine. Great. Catherine is back on. Okay. I think we can continue. Sorry. I don't know if anyone else has new business.

Does anyone else have new business? Going once, going twice. Oh, since no one has new business, we're gonna open it up to input from the community. So please feel free to let us know if you have anything you wanna say.

As a reminder, anyone who has a question or a comment, if you're a member of the public, you'll have noticed you can't unmute yourself. Please use the Zoom raise hand function, put a note in the chat, or turn on your camera and wave at me. I'll find you. I will let our chair know that you have a question or a comment. And then when she recognizes you to speak or to sign, we will give you two minutes to make your comment or question.

I think at this point, our members of the public are mostly our soon to be new members. If anyone wants to say anything, please feel free to, like I said, raise hand, put in the chat or come off your camera and wave at me. Sam, did I see a wave? I'll ask you to unmute in case I saw a wave, then you can No.

And you're good, thank you.

Okay. Great. Didn't wanna miss it. Carl is not here to make his favorite motion. So if there's no more public input, I think someone else may need to make it.

Do we even need to make a motion since there's not a quorum, Andrea?

You still need to to close it. You still need to close the meeting. Otherwise,

it will

exist forever.

I'll make this is Jerry. I I move that we we close the meeting. We end end the meeting. This is Paul. I

second. Send. Have a great evening. We'll see you next month. Bye. Everyone. Have a good evening.